Remember 2021, when the NASCAR Cup Series had nine different winners in the first 10 races and it looked like we’d have 18, 19, maybe even 20 individual drivers visiting victory lane?
Remember how Kyle Larson quickly took charge after that and blew everyone away once that No. 5 team got in a groove?
Throw all that out the window.
2022 didn’t even come close to that. With the debut of the Next Gen car, a moderately revamped schedule and several other factors blanketing the season, 2022 produced a whopping 19 different Cup winners over its 36 races — 21 if you count non-points events. That’s the most in any season since 2001, which 2022 tied in the aforementioned category.
And we thought last year’s 17 winners was wild.
Read all of Frontstretch‘s content looking back on 2022 here
It’s easy to forget there’s been years of myriad winners, though since 2010 those have been defined more by the first-time or part-time cars rolling into victory lane. Most notably, 2011 had Trevor Bayne, Regan Smith, David Ragan, Paul Menard and Marcos Ambrose all scoring their maiden triumph. 2021 wasn’t an exception either, with Michael McDowell, Christopher Bell and Bubba Wallace all making their first visit to a Cup winner’s circle while AJ Allmendinger scored what was just his second overall win at the premier level and first for Kaulig Racing.
But as a whole, most seasons have their dominant drivers and things shake out to where a number of drivers are at the front week in and week out. Not so for 2022, when 19 individuals visited victory lane and a few others had chances to push the overall number of winners on the season into the low-to-mid-20s. We very easily could’ve had two dozen drivers with at least a one in the stats page’s win column.
I would say that Austin Cindric‘s win in the Daytona 500 to open the season should’ve been an indicator, but McDowell winning last year’s event had similarly significant storylines tied to it and Larson’s dominance quickly took over the season.
Daytona 500 winners 🤯😁 pic.twitter.com/xS6rGHScSn
— Austin Cindric (@AustinCindric) February 21, 2022
Instead, 2022 resulted in more than half the races being won by varying names. Five first-time winners were among them: Cindric, Chase Briscoe, Ross Chastain, Daniel Suarez and Tyler Reddick, all within the first half of the season.
Bell, Wallace and Chris Buescher (plus Chastain and Reddick) tacked on their second wins — and, in the cases of…
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